Alternate Creature Interpretations (Feel free to add your own additions)

[Xania]

Amphibian trolls like newts crossed my mind, also merrows being like huge horned frogs, but they looked too similar to bullywugs.
Also, hydras being an evolved and animated venus flytrap, although doesn't sound very convincing.
I love those fungus-based undead.

[Sizzlefoot]

Amphibian trolls like newts crossed my mind, also merrows being like huge horned frogs, but they looked too similar to bullywugs.
Also, hydras being an evolved and animated venus flytrap, although doesn't sound very convincing.
I love those fungus-based undead.

Thanks! Those hydras sound pretty cool.

Maybe elves are part plant. As an elf ages, it becomes more and more tree-like- its skin becoming bark, its hair turning to moss, leaves, and vines, its fingers becoming twigs and branches, etc. Eventually it sends down roots and just becomes a tree. Maybe treants are the rare elves who retain their mobility/sentience when becoming trees?

[Bohandas]

A fair point. A good idea to brainstorm here, perhaps.

So, what do the Yugoloth do that could involve the PCs.

The low level ones are basically boring. Mince-meat soldiers. But then, so are the lowest levels of pretty much all outsider races.

Let's consider the higher ranks: Arcanaloths, Ultroloths and Marraenoloths.

...

Ultroloth

Spoiler

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I'll just come down and say that I never really liked any of the interpretations they got in any editions. A lot of good hints at fluff role, really terrible execution. Take the thing with no face. Did that ever really play into anything? No. These should be almost ridiculously shadowy and secretive. Perhaps immune to name magic, or binding, or divination. If Vecna can do it, why not them? One of these days, I'll have to rewrite them, at a power level equal to a balor or a pit fiend. But sneakier. The things about them that every entry mentions are: their underlings fear them too much to work against them, they are mysterious, they are incredibly well-informed and always seem to know everything that's going on. That seem to me to be the attributes of a campaign-ender bad guy.

What about as NPCs then? Here's a character concept I put together for another thread:

NPC: "Psychopathic Sammy"

Psychopathic Sammy is the proprietor of a magic weapon shop called "Psychopathic Sammy's Armament Emporium". The sign on the door advertizes "homicidally insane prices". True to the sign's word Psychopathic Sammy buys and sells weapons and magic items at a lower profit margin than standard. As the PCs grow in levels, the store seems to begin to follow them to different cities and towns, always appearing the same on the inside as it did in it's initial location. When the PCs become high level and start to deal in large amounts of treasure the Store begins to appear in places where it absolutely could not be, such as in the trunk of a tree or embedded inside of a one foot thich wall which definitely doesn;t have his shop on the other side of it. In truth, Pychopatgic Sammy is a yugoloth, and the store remains where it has always been; in a suite on the 203rd floor of the Wasting Tower in the gray wastes of Hades; (which, btw, imposes extensive hidden penalties to any non-evil PC that enters the store until such time as they exit the store). The door is a reconfigurable portal that can be sent where it needs to be. Often appearing in the dead of night so that Sammy can have time to murder the previous occupants of any building whose door his shop has replaced and set up a copy of his window display in the window. PCs with high spot skills will notice that the window display on the inside (which generally has an illusory street beyond it; another permenent magic item) doesn't quite match the window display on the outside, especially as regards people on the other side of it. If the PCs try to attack or rob the store knowing who Sammy really is they'll find themselves swarmed by yugoloth guards and the portal gone.

If the PCs, having found out Sammy's true nature, ask why he's doing business with them, the heroes, of all people, Sammy will become offended and say that he wouldn't be a very good arms dealer if he cared who he was selling to; (the only important things are that thet have spare magical weapins to be sold off and more importantly they have money to but more expensive ones; he wishes only to make money and ensure that the world is supplied with instruments of death). Pursuant to this, anything which the PCs sell to him has a very high chance of making it into the hands of their enemies (or at least the important non-random-encounter enemies that can afford magical stuff), at the same low price (represented by an amount of additional gear corresponding to the discount) at which Sammy sells to them. Over time they may find that they;ve sold him the same few items many many times. If they start to wonder if this Yugoloth is selling them cursed stuff or whatever he'll show them an item which has made it's way back to him a few times and laughing reply something to the effect of "I'd say that you lot are curse"

Additionally, if the PCs ever find themselves in jail his door may appear in the wall of their cell with an offer to sell them weapons (and in this case only weapons) on credit. He may also let them temporarily hire some thugs on credit. He will not sell them anything else on credit nor will he use his portal to drop them off somewhere else.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...er-Ideas/page9

[Xania]

Thanks! Those hydras sound pretty cool.

Maybe elves are part plant. As an elf ages, it becomes more and more tree-like- its skin becoming bark, its hair turning to moss, leaves, and vines, its fingers becoming twigs and branches, etc. Eventually it sends down roots and just becomes a tree. Maybe treants are the rare elves who retain their mobility/sentience when becoming trees?

I like it, those elven-trees even could somehow create sprites, dryads and similar beings as guardians for them.


Gnomes are very common and often are the servants of whatever creature that claimed them, small elves, small dwarves, 3e ape-looking goblins, mites and other creatures are all gnomes, maybe they could change their appearance to look like their bosses taste or they simply are different kinds of gnomes.

[Tvtyrant]

I like it, those elven-trees even could somehow create sprites, dryads and similar beings as guardians for them.


Gnomes are very common and often are the servants of whatever creature that claimed them, small elves, small dwarves, 3e ape-looking goblins, mites and other creatures are all gnomes, maybe they could change their appearance to look like their bosses taste or they simply are different kinds of gnomes.

The Elves being tree-folk is cool, matches with my current setting where Elves have to sleep progressively more as they get older. So a truly ancient Elf is asleep 90% or more of the time, but here they would be "rooted" and then wake up as Ents when they needed to move around or defend the community. I'm thinking the Elven tree houses are actually the ancestor of that clan of Elves, and the elf forests are actually just old elves. That explains why elves always live in a forest and somehow defend it with populations of a few hundred; the majority of elves are in the midsize tree state and invading armies get ambushed when they go to bed inside the forest.

I like the idea of a race of morphic servant creatures. Like the Minions but they take the actual shape of their boss (and aren't as annoying.) So Goblins are Orc-Gnomes, Halflings are Human-Gnomes, Gnomes are Dwarf-Gnomes, Kobolds are Dragon-Gnomes. Seems like a cool explanation for the ubiquitous "minion race that should be extinct."

[Sizzlefoot]

I like it, those elven-trees even could somehow create sprites, dryads and similar beings as guardians for them.


Gnomes are very common and often are the servants of whatever creature that claimed them, small elves, small dwarves, 3e ape-looking goblins, mites and other creatures are all gnomes, maybe they could change their appearance to look like their bosses taste or they simply are different kinds of gnomes.

Ohh, that does sound cool...maybe other humanoids breed them and gnomes, halflings, kobolds, goblins, etc. are different breeds?

[Xania]

Oh! Both possibilities for the gnomes sound cool to me, don't know wich one i should choose
If necesary it can be let open to interpretation, with both versions used as legends or something around those lines.

[Grim Portent]

An idea that's come to me about undead and necromancy is the possibility that you cannot directly animate the dead yourself as a spellcaster, merely control those that arise on their own, so necromancers instead defile tombs and battlefields to encourage the bodies within to arise of their own volition.

You can't just stab a guy then make his bones get up and dance a jig, you have to defile his remains enough his soul comes back to try and get revenge then snare him with magical bindings to make him your thrall. Stealing grave goods, mutilating remains, and generally doing things to disgrace or impair the spirit in the afterlife are more likely to draw the spirit back to seek vengeance, at which point it blunders into a trap unless its' powerful enough to resist the necromancer's magic.

It feels more in line with old folklore about the dead rising because of dying in shame, or not being buried with the right stuff than a guy in black robes who can animate armies of shambling corpses easily does.

[Sizzlefoot]

Orcs could be descended from humans who interbred with ogres/trolls (or even hill giants, maybe.) Elves could be human/fey hybrids. Or maybe elves were once humans who made a pact with an archfey for eternal youth, but gave up their souls in return. (I'm pretty sure I've read that in some Norse folklore, elves don't have souls, though it could also come from the later Christianization of them turning them into demonic imp-things.)

[Xania]

Maybe could be both options? For example we have a gnome who always has been a dwarf-gnome but for whatever reason ends among elves, so that gnome becomes an elf-gnome. Hopefully it makes some sense.


I think i read norse elves not having souls somewhere too, but don't know if it was a reliable information.
I read that imps recieved all the negative traits the fairy had, who got rid of all of them. Maybe mine descend from banished fey, but is actually all the fairies' fault, and imps somewhat remember it.

[DuctTapeKatar]

I got an idea, gotta bounce it around first:

Medusae (Gorgons) are actually a race of elves ties to the nature of mountains, canyons, and stone touched by wind. Their scales lose color and become rough in texture as they age, and upon reaching the end of their lives, they turn to stone, often becoming part of the stones that they call home. Their petrifying gaze is not a curse, but rather a part of their nature in connection of the fey of the mountain peaks. They do not have males in their race, though their typically long lives make finding mates less difficult. They prefer to breed with elves or dwarves in order to sustain their connection with their nature, as human mates tend to dilute medusa blood and make the offspring's gaze less effective. Medusa will always give birth to another medusa -- there are no half-breeds, and any medusa with human ancestry are often weak and frail, attributes that make life in craggy locales difficult.

Gorgons exist with natures connected to glaciers and ice in addition to stone and wind. These are named "Euryale" and bear horns in addition to their snake hair. Their gaze transfroms those that look into their eyes into fragile sculptures of ice.

[Sizzlefoot]

I got an idea, gotta bounce it around first:

Medusae (Gorgons) are actually a race of elves ties to the nature of mountains, canyons, and stone touched by wind. Their scales lose color and become rough in texture as they age, and upon reaching the end of their lives, they turn to stone, often becoming part of the stones that they call home. Their petrifying gaze is not a curse, but rather a part of their nature in connection of the fey of the mountain peaks. They do not have males in their race, though their typically long lives make finding mates less difficult. They prefer to breed with elves or dwarves in order to sustain their connection with their nature, as human mates tend to dilute medusa blood and make the offspring's gaze less effective. Medusa will always give birth to another medusa -- there are no half-breeds, and any medusa with human ancestry are often weak and frail, attributes that make life in craggy locales difficult.

Gorgons exist with natures connected to glaciers and ice in addition to stone and wind. These are named "Euryale" and bear horns in addition to their snake hair. Their gaze transfroms those that look into their eyes into fragile sculptures of ice.

This is a pretty cool and interesting take on gorgons. Them being a race of elves is especially cool.

I'm planning on making giants more like forces of nature- a fire giant is not just a bringer of wildfires, it is the wildfire. They would almost be a part of the environment, like physical elementals.

[Xania]

Doesn't sounds bad at all, making gorgons a kind of elf wouldn't never cross my head, only centaurs, dryads, nymphs, satyrs and forest giants, maybe jungle giants and lamias too.

Also, something like moon elves being the only magical ones, star elves being very tall and heavy built, avariel being small like kobolds and so on.




Those giants are cool, are they a kind of elemental then?

[Sizzlefoot]

Doesn't sounds bad at all, making gorgons a kind of elf wouldn't never cross my head, only centaurs, dryads, nymphs, satyrs and forest giants, maybe jungle giants and lamias too.

Also, something like moon elves being the only magical ones, star elves being very tall and heavy built, avariel being small like kobolds and so on.




Those giants are cool, are they a kind of elemental then?

Yes, I suppose they are. Maybe they're descended from bound elementals who just sort of evolved to better fit our world. Or maybe there's some sort of generic giant (maybe hill giants?), and all the other kinds are giant/elemental hybrids.

[DuctTapeKatar]

Yes, I suppose they are. Maybe they're descended from bound elementals who just sort of evolved to better fit our world. Or maybe there's some sort of generic giant (maybe hill giants?), and all the other kinds are giant/elemental hybrids.

I was thinking more on "what is the nature of this creature, and how is it connected to the rest of the world?"

For example: dwarves are also creatures of stone, but of deep stone: ore, crystal, and the hearts of mountains. Stone actually heeds their commands to a degree -- dwarves are only slightly stronger than humans, but stone basically weakens or stregnthens their touch (not to say that they can dig through a mountain with their hands, or make gravel into concrete, but it's much easier for them to work the stone). This way, their link to nature is an actual thing and not just mystic mumbo-jumbo.

Elves are fey creatures with bonds to the natural world, much moreso than most, so having a medusa being a different kind of elf just kinda maks sense. I almost want to do the same with merfolk, since having sea-elves in the world is kinda redundant at that point.

Elementals were always really tricky for me, because I don't really find appeal in how most planar-stuff is depicted.

[Sizzlefoot]

Elementals were always really tricky for me, because I don't really find appeal in how most planar-stuff is depicted.

Yeah, I've always found the basic elementals to be pretty bland, and the fact that the elemental planes are just masses of that element where you can't really adventure. I heard a cool idea about the plane of earth being a gigantic malevolent megadungeon.

edit: also, more relevant to this thread, I spent some time messing around with a random fantasy race generator, mixed it with some random ideas drifting around in my head, and came up with these:

Blue-skinned, dark-magic-using dwarves, the first dwarven race. They came up from the underworld roughly a thousand years ago.

Yellow-haired dwarves who are good with metal-related magic. They were once blue dwarves, but the minotaurs fleshwarped them into a servant race.

Water buffalo minotaurs. They're known for their fleshwarping and their canal-building skills.

Green-eyed, jet black-skinned elves who are good at seafaring.

Isle-dwelling high elves with a culture similar to ancient Greece and Rome. They're also a theocracy.

Orcs who are good with archery. I'm planning on giving these guys a goliath-ish culture, or maybe completely turning them into goliaths.

Trolls who live on an island that's actually a giant living creature. For some reason they're really good at light magic. And weaving.

Asexually reproducing unicorn monks. Nuff said.

Demon-descended dragon people who are good at swimming and fishing.

[Sizzlefoot]

I have dragons, giants, krakens, and rocs all as semi-divine embodiments of a particular element. Along with the element thing, they each have an additional special quality which is vaguely related to the element.

Dragons, which embody fire, have this thing where their personal power is based on how much they own/influence (because fires get stronger depending on what's burning and how much of it). That's why dragons hoard - because accumulating gold is the simplest way to grow your power. The ultimate way, of course, is to rule over others, which is how the BBEG of my current campaign (an ancient dragon who secretly rules over most of a continent) got to where he is today.

Giants, which embody earth, get to have a secondary element that they embody (because the earth supports all the elements). Stone giants, who doubled down on earth, are the weakest, and tend to be stolid and unchanging. Fire and storm giants, who have secondary elements of fire and water respectively, are roughly as strong as each other - both are very strongly emotional, but fire giants have trains of thought like locomotives (they change their focus only slowly), while storm giants are more mercurial. Cloud giants, who embody air as well as fire, are the most powerful of the giants, and are tricksters - they enjoy screwing around with lesser beings.

Krakens, which embody water, have powerful psychic abilities. Pretty much anything that could get by as an asspull from Phoenix or Professor X in comic books is something they can do.

Rocs embody air, but I haven't decided what their second quality is. Maybe shapeshifting?

This is mostly beside the point, as the previously-mentioned BBEG long ago exterminated most of the other elemental embodiments - the few survivors are mostly in hiding.

You could also have something similar to the ancient, primordial rime giants of norse myth- carved from living ice and stone, hermaphroditic, and in many cases having multiple heads. These guys could be the ancient, unaltered ancestors of the giants, who came to take on the mantles of other elements for...reasons? So maybe the stone giants would be rime giants who chose to stay "pure" and suffered because of it.

Maybe rocs can control the air around them, raising or lowering its temperature or creating illusions and suchlike.

[Xania]

I had a dream where vampires were wrinkled and swollen things with huge mouths and they walked wobbling, although they were very stealthy when they wanted.

[Sizzlefoot]

What if one swapped all of the race's roles? Illithids are the brutish warriors while orcs are psionic masterminds. The ranking of giants goes from "bottom to top" in that the giants who dwell the lowest are in charge, so it's stone giants, hill giants, fire giants, frost giants, cloud giants, then finally storm giants. Elves are mad inventors and gnomes are serene, beautiful, and magically skilled.

[rlc]

Elves are humans who have found Nirvana and are trying their hardest not to be too obvious about this, but also can't help but gently guide their brethren.

[Flumphburger]

What if one swapped all of the race's roles? Illithids are the brutish warriors while orcs are psionic masterminds. The ranking of giants goes from "bottom to top" in that the giants who dwell the lowest are in charge, so it's stone giants, hill giants, fire giants, frost giants, cloud giants, then finally storm giants. Elves are mad inventors and gnomes are serene, beautiful, and magically skilled.

Then all you've done is swapped their names.

[Xania]

But is not a bad starting point, the name of a creature already generates a lot of preconceived ideas.

[Sizzlefoot]

Their general culture and "feel" would likely stay similar. Illithids are still coldly logical tentacle monsters, they just find that brute force is faster when dealing with humanoids. Orcs still made blood sacrifices and raid towns, but they're also evil masterminds who can rip out your mind in an instant. Just some random little ideas, mainly to justify muscle mindflayers.

[GaelofDarkness]

It wouldn't be terribly difficult to make the mindflayers something more like the lictors in Warhammer 40k, monstrous creatures that stalk intelligent prey and serve the hive mind. Rather than sophisticated and logical, these cthulhumanoids could have minds as alien as a wild beast, a complete ruthlessness beyond human analogue - not stupid but seemingly irrational to humanoid observers. I'd see no problem with replacing the standard breastplate with a natural armor of carapace and maybe giving the mindflayer claw attacks comparable in damage to their tentacle attack just to drive home the bestial nature of this take on the illithids.

Rather than raiding, orcs might demand tributes from settlements in their territory - with swift and severe consequences. Anyone found to be stirring up trouble for the orcs is publicly executed by brain exploding. It wouldn't be tough to replace orc spellcasters with psionicists. The blood sacrifices the orcs demand could be in service to Great Old One type entities rather than the standard figures. You could even go further. Maybe the tanarukk aren't less demonic and more aberration. In place of being hulking and bestial they could be unnerving and unerringly precise - maybe swapping Dexterity and Strength around and giving them a high Intelligence. To borrow imagery from The Wheel of Time, maybe they're more myrddraal than trolloc?

[Sizzlefoot]

It wouldn't be terribly difficult to make the mindflayers something more like the lictors in Warhammer 40k, monstrous creatures that stalk intelligent prey and serve the hive mind. Rather than sophisticated and logical, these cthulhumanoids could have minds as alien as a wild beast, a complete ruthlessness beyond human analogue - not stupid but seemingly irrational to humanoid observers. I'd see no problem with replacing the standard breastplate with a natural armor of carapace and maybe giving the mindflayer claw attacks comparable in damage to their tentacle attack just to drive home the bestial nature of this take on the illithids.

Rather than raiding, orcs might demand tributes from settlements in their territory - with swift and severe consequences. Anyone found to be stirring up trouble for the orcs is publicly executed by brain exploding. It wouldn't be tough to replace orc spellcasters with psionicists. The blood sacrifices the orcs demand could be in service to Great Old One type entities rather than the standard figures. You could even go further. Maybe the tanarukk aren't less demonic and more aberration. In place of being hulking and bestial they could be unnerving and unerringly precise - maybe swapping Dexterity and Strength around and giving them a high Intelligence. To borrow imagery from The Wheel of Time, maybe they're more myrddraal than trolloc?

Or the tannaruk could be those few individuals warped by the mere sight of the Great Old One-types. They have an insane, alien understanding.

[Xania]

It's late for my orcs, but mindflayer-minotaurs related to those aquatic and fleshwarping water buffalo ones could serve.

Never thought that a minotaur could be changed O.O

[ThriceHonored]

Let's see, I've got eusocial goblinoids, lawful good mummies, mind flayers who eat dreams instead of brains, Gigeresque elves, and dire bats who act like pilotfish, among others.

If any of these sound interesting, I can talk about them at length.

So tell me more about these dream flayers....

[Sizzlefoot]

So tell me more about these dream flayers....

I second this.

[Xania]

Yes, it sounds quite harmless, can't be sure though.


Is not very much but drow are the desfigured ones, driders are the real creatures of Lolth.

[Aniikinis]

I have a tendency to play and have dwarves act like the ones from Dwarf Fortress. Having the racial boons/banes of slightly crazy, slightly OCD, and slightly alcoholic, but with tendencies to create insanely complex machinery, bloody and strangely strict work-based cultures, and fortresses able to be defended unto infinity from below as well as above. Unless it falls to ruin due to the crazy little b******* and their idiotic schemes/random invading siege mosnters.

Yes, it sounds quite harmless, can't be sure though.


Is not very much but drow are the disfigured ones, driders are the real creatures of Lolth.

I like this, I'm using this. Especially if it turns out the Chitines are what happens to surface elves who get in Lloth's good graces, and the Shunned are what the drow become if they fall out of it even more. But what would come of the Arachnoloths?